Chapter 2, "Day -30", Scene 3 = "Step toward the Future," Section 2

Weir Annadetcall

Weir had arrived early at the assembly hall in the Center for Learning. Now, he fidgeted while members of his combine filled in the vast array of seats around him. His llevar tracked their progress. On its holoscreen, it scrolled names in two columns and modeled completion by slowly coloring a cylinder in the middle. The sheer number of them stirred unease in his bowels even after these long — and successful, he reminded himself — seconds of working closely with them.

Pushing himself upright, Weir brought his mind around one more time to work — there was still plenty of work to be done, even after all the effort leading up to their filing in Ganj Dareh yesterday — but he couldn't concentrate for several reasons. Picking one, he scanned the hall.

Seats spread across the ellipse like they were concave pebbles in a garden from-Nihon, carefully raked so each was no more important than another. No one stood out; but combined, they produced an effect, powerful and calming.

Nevertheless, the hall shouldn't exist. Too many times, Yeibichai's Pattern Languages discouraged such large rooms. Dehumanizing, they said. People needed smaller spaces, with light on two sides, with windows overlooking life, with a variety of ceiling heights, and so on. People felt better in spaces where they connected, to each other, to the building, to the earth.

His llevar chimed discreetly. Weir glanced at the list of events that set off alarms: Günter had arrived. Weir didn't stir. He needn't worry about where the strategist sat. Any seat was as capable as any other. But why was the Old Man here? Must be to support him, Weir, tactician, in charge. Right? Certainly not to review his performance in this meeting. Right?

Suddenly, Weir found his own seat unbearable. He rose and tried to amble along an aisle radial, but his unease made him awkward. He nodded and smiled and murmured greetings, all the while puzzling about his misgivings, this feeling of pressure, that he was missing something in his surroundings that he ought to see. He reached a bank of doors and peered out into an interior thoroughfare. The corridor, more room than passageway, channeled people throughout the Center, not just to his meeting/can-be-felt. He straightened and turned around to stare across the pattern expansive of the meeting hall.

Pattern Languages expressed aspects of psychology that evolved long before technology relieved people of natural pressures. Deep inside themselves, human beings knew how they should fit into the world around them. They knew how they should organize their villages. They knew what facilities they needed for co-existence peaceful and for excellence individual. They knew where strangers should be welcomed and where friends should relax. They knew the many patterns that should surround them, patterns that would pertain as long as people are people. But they no longer realized these truths, because they had been buried under too much new knowledge, too much new capability.

During most of the millennia-long scramble precipitated by tools, humanity lost touch with principles of comfort basic. Too many times, they crammed themselves into perfectly crystalline squares and rectangles, into shopping malls engineered for optimization of space, utilities, and advertising, into mazes of tenements that would drive rats insane.

Yet, the timeless way of building persisted, in ancient villages unassailed by renewal urban, in architects whose talent enabled them to design from their hearts and not their cerebra, in societies that realized that civilization should be supported by technology, not vice-versa. In time, the patterns inherent in these scattered approaches were distilled. In time, people formulated Pattern Languages to remind them how to build and lead comfortable lives. By that time, unfortunately, Gë was too set in its inertia and infrastructure. Yeibichai gave the Founders a chance to start anew.

Weir tilted his head. He noticed something about the way people were filling the hall. They entered alone or in pairs; at the most, five came in together. But they gathered in larger groups, taking pools of seats, leaving gaps between them and other, similar groups. On occasion, someone from one (he chose the next word carefully) tribe would stand, wave a greeting to someone in another tribe, then cross over and settle into a ripple of acceptance that soon subsided. Eventually, the gaps filled in. Something about all that pushed at him.

Weir had learned the Pattern Languages as part of his education elementary. He had pursued their study as part of his education advanced. He had even reviewed the most common of the 284 Patterns after Günter tapped him for this job. He recognized now that Patterns were not sterile, academic tools for assembling a society and constructing its habitat. Rather, they described people in a way that was not intuitively obvious, yet was most remarkably true. And thereby, they informed the process of architecture and organization to support this understanding of human psychology.

For one thing, people liked crowds. They developed Sacred Sites so they can celebrate rites of passage between stages of their life cycle. They set up Local Town Halls at the crossroads of their communities to provide arenas for public discussion. They attended theaters, carnivals, sporting events.

Yet, the Patterns that dictated houses and offices never included large rooms — like this one.

Frustrated, Weir spun and headed off without looking. He bumped into someone, stepped aside onto someone else's foot, backed off into a third, and stumbled away with a grin embarrassed and eyebrows lifted by confusion. The others just laughed.

"Hey-ho, Weir," one said and walked on, still chuckling.

"Finally got us all in one place," added another. "Be gentle."

"You must be feeling it too, Weir," commented the third as she hung back to confide in him. "Like History is changing course — and I'm here in the middle of it!" Her eyes glowed above her smile.

Weir nodded. The guileless woman hurried on to catch up with her companions. As Weir watched her, his ignorance cracked, then broke up; understanding started to flow up into his consciousness.

The hall was no temple, yet it hushed people, swallowing their noises and discouraging their voices. The hall was no town hall, yet it encouraged alertness and dedication. The hall was no coliseum, yet it —

His mind jammed up again, bogged to a halt again. Weir caught his breath. He had been going somewhere, but now — concepts, vivid yet unborn, beckoned to him from the other side of this renewed stupidity. He lifted his gaze in an unconscious search for an idea.

The ceiling hung high above them, its rough surface a puzzle of geometric shapes. Some deflected sound while others absorbed it, working with the walls and floor to bring about that hush he'd noticed. Other structures could present magnified holographic images — an important part of the pattern here.

There was no need for the bowl used in amphitheaters because the hall's automata easily made sure any one could be seen by all others. Each of the uniform seats provided foilscreen, keyspace, and earphones. Everyone was equal here, but not the equality of anonymity, rather the equality of participation. Not like an arena or theater, where the facility focused attention on a small set of players.

That was the core truth underlying this hall! Everyone liked being a part of something big, not as spectator, but as partner. She liked sitting unnoticed, yet involved. He wanted the opportunity to speak and be taken seriously, yet not be pressured to perform.

This hall blended church, forum, and stadium, and injected a special aspect of affairs civic. It allowed many people to come together easily and enabled them to observe and act. This unique structure both defined and comprised its own Pattern.

Weir suddenly glowed with pleasure: the hall fulfilled a rare need; his fellow citizens had applied the pattern with wonderful stinginess; and he had puzzled it out by thinking in fundamental terms. Maybe Günter had been right last night. Maybe he needn't worry about the Old Man's presence today.

Grinning, Weir hustled back to his seat. He bent over to inquire into his llevar's holoscreen. The cylinder showing progress was nearly full, its base labeled "97%." He glanced at the time. They were a deka-second past schedule.

He had brought all of his people together, where they could breathe the same air, rub elbows, feel each other's presence, for a reason. Confidence in that reason, in himself and Günter, and in their plan, seeped its quiet through him. Time to get this meeting/can-be-felt off the ground.

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